William Edmondson’s ‘Boxer,’ Presumed Lost, Goes to Auction

Poised to throw a jab, William Edmondson’s limestone “Boxer” was last purchased in 1949, right from the sculptor’s Tennessee yard. It was presumed lost until 2014, when the current owner briefly lent it to the Cheekwood Museum of Art in Nashville.

Now the work — believed to be modeled after the fighter Joe Louis — is expected to bring $150,000 to $250,000 on Jan. 22 at Christie’s Outsider and Vernacular Art sale. The “Boxer” was said to have been a favorite of the sculptor, who died in 1951; kept on a shelf protected by an overhang, it was photographed by Edward Weston and Louise Dahl-Wolfe, among others.

“It speaks to Edmondson’s understanding of the visual culture of that period,” said Cara Zimmerman, a Christie’s specialist in folk and outsider art. “This powerful African-American man who was able to cross over to be a hero for all Americans,” she noted, referring to Louis.

Born in 1874, the son of freed slaves, Edmondson worked as a railroad laborer and then a hospital janitor before beginning to carve tombstones. In 1937, he became the first African-American artist to be given a solo show at the Museum of Modern Art.

“He is one of the stars of this field,” Ms. Zimmerman said. “He exemplifies what outsider art is at its core, at its best.”

The “Boxer” also attests to Edmondson’s sophisticated way with a chisel: He was able to delineate the fighter’s smooth skin, the contour of his eyes and cheeks, his wiry hair. “The piece is lunging forward on the block,” Ms. Zimmerman said, “almost like jumping up from his stool and into the ring.”

U.F.O.-Inspired Art

As Ionel Talpazan told it, at the age of 8 he was abducted by extraterrestrials in the Romanian countryside, after fleeing his foster home.

This vision went on to inspire Mr. Talpazan’s outsider art. He was discovered in the 1980s and died in September, at 60.

Now the Outsider Art Fair is featuring his work in its first curated booth devoted to a recently deceased artist. “Talpazan had such a critical impact on the New York-specific outsider art field that it was the right time to look back at the work and work that had never been shown to the public before,” said Becca Hoffman, the fair’s director.

The fair, which takes place Jan. 21 through 24 at the Metropolitan Pavilion in Manhattan, will also highlight two other deceased self-taught artists: Alessandra Michelangelo, part of the Atelier Blu Cammello art workshop for mental health patients in Italy, whose work will be shown by Chris Byrne, a founder of the Dallas Art Fair; and Hawkins Bolden, whose yard of scarecrows made out of refuse will be recreated by Shrine gallery.

Having sold his art on the street, Mr. Talpazan was eventually represented by Aarne Anton, who, after visiting him, gave the artist a show at his American Primitive Gallery in 1996. “His walls were covered with spaceships,” Mr. Anton said. “It was as if I walked into a space where nothing else existed.”

A Gallery Moves South

At 18th Street and 10th Avenue, the Alexander and Bonin Gallery had long been located a bit south of its Chelsea counterparts. Now it is heading even farther downtown — to 47 Walker Street in TriBeCa.

The gallery will reopen there this summer, in a larger space designed by Bade Stageberg Cox, a New York architecture and design firm.

It isn’t easy to leave Chelsea, which has been home to the gallery for the last 18 years. But the price of real estate kept going up, and the building the gallery is in is coming down.

Still, the dealers said that they were looking forward to the additional square footage and were not concerned about losing foot traffic.

“We’ve always been a gallery people come to, to see the artists we represent,” said Ted Bonin, who, with his partner, Carolyn Alexander, represents John Ahearn, Peter Hujar and Doris Salcedo, among others. “We have enjoyed the peacefulness of this location and we’re going to achieve that again at Walker Street. It’s a beautiful block that is away from all the noise and rushing quality of much of Manhattan. You sort of feel you’ve stepped into another time.”

In a way, the move represents a return, since the gallery originally opened in SoHo in 1995. The new exhibition space will occupy two floors and more than 7,000 square feet, which will include a basement area for video, sound work and performance. “It’s going to bring us much more flexibility,” Ms. Alexander said.

The gallery moves out on Jan. 10, after which it will continue to operate in a temporary space at 265 Canal Street until the new site is ready. And while the move seems to signal a new chapter for Alexander and Bonin, the dealers indicated that it will largely be business as usual.

“We still work with everyone we worked with when we opened,” Mr. Bonin said.